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Senior U.S. officials who joined a White House conference call early Monday to brief reporters on the operation said a total of four men and one woman were killed in the 40-minute raid carried out via helicopter on a compound about 30 miles north of Islamabad. Press reports said Navy SEALs executed the carefully rehearsed mission.

The officials provided scant details on how bin Laden died, but one said simply: “He did resist the assault force.”

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Officials said they believed two of the four men killed were couriers for Al Qaeda and one was an adult son of bin Laden. A woman was killed after she “was used as a shield by a male combatant,” one official said. Two other women were injured in the raid, the official said.

U.S. intelligence had been trying to track those couriers for years and grew suspicious about the specific compound last August, after noting that it was eight times larger than other homes in the area and had unusual security features like 12-to-18 foot walls topped with barbed wire, one official said. “It is also noteworthy that the compound is valued at $1 million and has no telephone or Internet service connected to it,” the official added.

The plans for the raid were kept close to the vest, with American officials declining to give a heads-up to Pakistan or any other country.

“An operation like this that is conducted has the utmost operational security attached to it,” one official said.

The killing of bin Laden held out the promise of providing some closure to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in which Al Qaeda operatives hijacked commercial airliners and flew them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the cockpit to prevent hijackers from completing their mission.

“I just hope that this is the beginning of the end,” said Debra Burlingame, a prominent critic of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policies and the sister of the airline pilot of one of the planes hijacked on September 11. “This is really huge. I feel quite emotional about it, to tell you the truth.”

“One of the things that went through my head was: ‘I hope that they got his body because I want to see it,’ ” she added. “I think it’s very important for the world to see that he’s dead so we don’t have conspiracies that he’s hiding somewhere.”

With considerable skepticism I am hearing about the death of Osama Bin Laden after TEN long years of supposedly hunting him down. We have now begun a new bout of campaigning and the President's (I voted for Obama) ratings are down, especially over his handling of the war in Afghanistan, etc. Changes were made in the military just last week or so. Suddenly we hear of this secret operation and Bin Laden is dead, SHOT IN THE FACE. They confirmed his identity and I've heard DNA proved it is him. We've always been told it takes several weeks to obtain results from DNA tests. The body has been disposed of already. He was shot in the face (making identification more difficult). The government "needed" justification to continue the war in Afghanistan, etc. (new threats and instability due to Bin Laden's death). Is there anyone out there besides myself who wonders about the validity of this information??? We know the government has manipulated the people before in order to start wars, and perhaps has facilitated and/or aided and abetted certain crimes to gain support for their wars. I wonder what happens next??? Besides more war!

I give all the credit to our brave armed forces. Great job guys. I give credit to Obama for having the confidence in our forces to go ahead with a very risky decision, even though he has never shown support or respect for our armed forces.

However, I will wait to see his words on our so-called friends, Pakistan, who is now blatantly guilty of protecting Osama, and the Saudis, for obviously financing his $1 million compound. This guy had way too many friends and it shows that arabs can never be trusted . Americans should be very angry and this country should use whatever means to get our revenge on these duplicitous sob's. How about economic sanctions and tossing Pakistan out of the United Nations?

Trump I have some good news and bad news for you first the bad news I'm going to speak to the nation just before APPRENTICE come on and I'm going to bused hundreds of students to front of the white house with dozen of huge flags and my OBAMA-BIDEN campaign 2012 signs.

The good news is the students are not going to burned the flags, GERARDO RIVERA will be reporting the event, and the AMERICAN PEOPLE will be happy that they are the first know that I kill USAMA BIN LADEN, OOPS well we warned PRINCE WILLIAMS to posponed his vacation before (sorry)

Now we wait -- Retaliation - the jury is still out as to if we are safer now than before.

Flying is a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I think we need security but patting down a six-year old who is reed thin is going too far. If I fly, I will get the pat down as I don't want any more radiation but then, I think I just stay near home.

My love of traveling to Mexico has stopped. We are becoming more and more prisoners of our own country, except, that is, for Obama and his EXTENDED "FAMILY" who fly in luxury wherever their hearts desire.

This clown killed thousands of americans which means repubs, dems (and future tea party members)were all murdered by this maniac and instead of taking 1 day to come together as 1 nation you sorry excuses for americans still talk about how bad the prez is and the damage he's doing. Maybe i'm more upset cause i have a family member lost on 9/11 but right now the man who killed my family and thousands of other americans is finally dead and like it or not> the prez showed courage at a time if he sneezed wrong people were ready to jump down his throat! So for 1 day stop pretending to be a patriot and actually show you are!

So Obama has now done the impossible, huh? That's great news. However, this raises the bar for him. Next, we need to see what he plans to do with job creation, gas prices, food prices, illegal immigration, and our rising national debt. If those things don't improve, the temporary boost he's now getting from this event won't matter in a few months. Never mind 2012.

I doubt the world is safer. I just listened to an ex CIA who said the next generation is more violent and more vicious than Bin Laden even thought about being. It was good to get rid of Bin Laden but I doubt it really helps the terrorist problem very much. Mainly just an ego thing for all involved.

Good job on the CIA / Military's part getting rid of the Global Criminal.

Tip of the hat to the President. Another tip of the hat to the President for continuing what Bush started. It is good to see this President finally doing something correct.

THEN he stepped in front of the camera, and it became all about him with too many I's, Me's & Mine. He should have kept the praise on the people who did the actual work. But we can't expect him to change now can we. He praises to non-producers and ingores the people who actually produce in this country.

Rush is on a tirade and really needs to follow the Donald's lead and shut the h*ll up.

God bless our troops for their efforts.

It will be interesting to see how we deal with our good friends in Pakestan. How much money will they get from us now to soothe their hurt feelings?.